TCG Meta Deck Representation & Breakdown
Deck Breakdown:
- 21 Kashtira
- 10 Spright (4 Runick Fur Hire, 3 Runick Live-Twin, 1 Runick, 1 Adventurer, 1 Gishki)
- 7 Branded Despia
- 6 Purrely
- 4 Dragon Link
- 4 Rikka Sunavalon
- 3 Mannadium
- 2 Labrynth
- 2 Gold Pride (1 P.U.N.K.)
- 1 Tearlaments
- 1 Sky Striker
- 1 HERO
Deck Highlights
Kashtira
Jeremy Mitchell took 1st place and became the new North America Champion with Kashtira.
For this event, Jeremy chose to play a Kashtira deck featuring the standard Kashtira core mixed with a range of powerful utility spell cards. This has been the most common way to build Kashtira, as the deck's core is already very consistent and using spells to help reinforce their board or break their opponent's board when going 2nd has proven to achieve successful results at top level play. In Jeremy's case, he chose his utility spells to be Dark Hole, Book of Moon, Triple Tactics Talent, and Forbidden Lance.
Dark Hole is a classic spell released in the 1st Yu-Gi-Oh core set; Legend of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Its effect to clear the board helps deal with troublesome locks that Kashtira usually struggle against such as Gimmick Puppet Nightmare and Knightmare Corruptor Iblee. Additionally, it also functions as a board breaking tool; forcing a negate or clearing the board for you to begin play.
Forbidden Lance has also come back into play as a counter to other popular utility spells such as Book of Moon, Enemy Controller, and Triple Tactics Talent. Lance is great as it keeps your Kashtira Arise-Heart safe from powerful threats while helping you play through Infinite Impermanence in the early stages of the game.
Book of Moon and Triple Tactics Talent are generally good utility spells that have both offensive and defensive application in almost every matchup. Book is great for halting your opponent's play by turning a monster face-down while also functioning as a board breaking tool to turn off an opponent's non-Link monster. This makes it great for shutting off early play in the mirror match and against decks such as Dragon Link, Mannadium and Spright. Tactics is also great as it helps you break boards, gather more resources, and snuff out your opponent's counterplay. It's especially good in the mirror match where you can force Kashtira Arise-Heart's effect but is also great against hand traps.
Dragon Link
Brendan Ryan made Top 8 at the NAWCQ with Dragon Link.
Dragon Link is a deck that's been around for a while now and just refuses to die. Despite hits to their key cards, the deck still finds a way to persist and actually, has recently got a buff with the release of Bystial Dis Pater and Chaos Angel.
Dragon Link, is of course, a combo deck that relies on a mix of Chaos Dragons and Bystials to build a board consisting of powerful Link monsters and Synchros. The deck's main idea, is to link into Striker Dragon and Dragunity Knight - Romulus to grab their utility Field Spells and then proceed to win the game through S/T disruption and powerful monsters. This makes the deck difficult to deal with as its combo is difficult to stop with just one hand trap, and board breakers such as Dark Ruler No More aren't as powerful due to the presence of Bystials, Branded Beast, and Branded Regained.
The deck is also surprisingly strong in advantage generation and grinding. Cards like Chaos Space and Branded Regained both draw cards while recycling the deck's resources. This lets you get multiple uses out of cards you'd usually only summon once. Boot Sector Launch is also a great grinding tool as it helps you fight back if your board is broken. With Dragon Link having so many comeback tools such as Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend, Chaos Angel, and of course Accesscode Talker, the deck can really turn the game around against you if you don't finish them when you have the chance.
We can also see 3 copies of Kurikara Divincarnate in the Side Deck. Kurikara is a great card when going 2nd as it lets you bait your opponent's disruptions and then turn their cards against them. It's especially good against cards such as Baronne de Fleur and decks like Spright and Kashtira where their monsters stick around on the field after using their effects. This lets you not only break their board and potentially OTK them, but also helps cement your board if you aren't able to kill them by using their Baronne de Fleur or Kashtira Arise-Heart for yourself during the end phase.
Purrely
Kamal Crooks also made Top 8 at the NAWCQ with Purrely.
Purrely is a deck that a lot of players have disregarded since the release of the most recent Forbidden & Limited List. However, it's still quite powerful in their ability to setup a powerful board with continuous advantage generation. In Kamal's case, he played a pretty standard Purrely list with a few hand traps, a mix of Book of Moon and Book of Eclipse and two copies of Purrelyeap!?.
The Purrely strategy hasn't changed all that much since the last we've spoke of it. While their consistency did get hit with Purrely Delicious Memory being limited to 1, they're still able to consistently setup a Expurrely Noir with quite a few materials. The main strength of the deck is its resilience to counterplay. Noir is a troublesome card to deal with if you don't have an easy answer, and even if you do, Stray Purrely Street and My Friend Purrely both recover a ton of resources when the opponent removes it from the field.
Kamal also chose to play a Book package over some other board breakers such as Dark Ruler No More and Evenly Matched. This is most likely because Book is more flexible as it has solid utility going both 1st and 2nd and is especially strong against Kashtira. These also happen to be Spell cards which works out nicely if you happen to hit one off Sylvan Princessprite to provide you an additional disruption.
We can also see a copy of Slacker Magician and Sky Striker Ace - Azalea in the Extra Deck. The inclusion of Slacker Magician opens up some Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS - Sky Thunder lines when you aren't able to make a Purrely XYZ. And Azalea provides some additional utility as a tool to out problematic floodgates or monsters. It also helps that since the deck plays so many spells, you'll often be able to get Azalea's battle effect to give you a bit of added pressure.
Runick Spright Fur Hire
Ian Torres made Top 16 with perhaps the most popular current variant of Spright; Runick Spright Fur Hire.
Runick Spright Fur Hire is a deck that has been gaining popularity for a while now. It's a deck that uses Rex, Freight Fur Hire as a Level 2 starter to eventually set up a board of multiple Fur Hire monsters, Spright disruptions, and hopefully Runick disruptions (in hand). The main strength of the deck is their ability to gain signifcant advantage through the effect of Folgo, Justice Fur Hire, and Runick Fountain. Folgo lets you draw cards if your opponent's card(s) is destroyed which synergizes nicely with your Spright, and Runick cards. This makes the deck difficult to play against when they're setup as you they can gain significant advantage with one wrong move.
We can also see 3 copies of Xyz Encore in the Side Deck. Encore is a great answer to Expurrely Noir; which the deck has a really rough time dealing with. The main appeal of Encore is that you can use it in the Draw Phase before Noir is able to use its acquired effect to draw. This can make it a better option than Kurikara Divincarnate or a Kaiju as it can remove the threat of Noir without letting the opponent draw cards.
Conclusion
With the last major event of the season coming to a close, Worlds on the horizon and Duelist Nexus just around the corner, the NAWCQ definitely ended the season with a bang. While Kashtira was definitely the best deck for this event, there were plenty of solid options, each with their own individual strengths. While we look forward to YCS Vancouver with many players hoping we get a new Forbidden & Limited List, it'll be interesting to see how Duelist Nexus will mix up the format, whether or not Kashtira will survive, and what decks will take their place as the new meta contenders.
References
July 7th - 9th, 2023
- North America World Championship Qualifier 2023
